September 08, 2008

Journalism That Matters event alum Olivia Ma, news manager at YouTube has announced what she call's YouTube's first journalism program in partnership with the Pulitzer Center (http://pulitzercenter.org). Ma describes it as "a journalism contest for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell stories that might not otherwise be covered by traditional media.

See the *Project: Report* channel page for all program details: http://youtube.com/projectreport

Or downoad this PDF: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/pdf/Project_Report_Press_Release_FINAL.pdf

Ma writes in an email:

"In each of the three rounds of Project: Report, reporters will be given an assignment to complete. Each of these assignments gives people an opportunity to report on the important individuals, issues, and communities in their lives that others do not yet know about.

"The assignment for Round 1 is to profile someone in your community, in three minutes or less, highlighting a story you think deserves to be heard by a wide audience. Video submissions for Round 1 are due by midnight EST on Sunday October 5, and a panel of journalists from the Pulitzer Center will narrow the field to 10 semi-finalists. The assignment for Round 2 will then be officially announced, and the judging for this round will be opened up to the YouTube community to determine the five finalists who will move onto the third and last assignment. Winners of each round will receive technology prizes (video cameras and laptop computers) from Sony VAIO and Intel, and the grand prize winner will be granted a $10,000 journalism fellowship with the Pulitzer Center to report on a story outside of their home country.

With Project: Report , the Pulitzer Center and YouTube hope to bring an audience to as many of these stories as possible and draw attention to important topics that have been under-reported, misreported, or not reported at all.